


Fatherhood

by peacehopeandrats



Series: Monthly Rumbelling 2021 [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling January 2021 (Once Upon A Time), Gen, Hyperion Heights (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28515414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacehopeandrats/pseuds/peacehopeandrats
Summary: Rogers is waiting to pick up Tilly from her first day at work and gets an unexpected visitor.(This may not sound like Rumbelle, but it's there.)A short ficlet based off of January's Monthly Rumbelling moodboard.
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Series: Monthly Rumbelling 2021 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088708
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Fatherhood

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by the Monthly Rumbelling for January 2021, an image of a pregnant belly. You can find it [here](https://a-monthly-rumbelling.tumblr.com/post/639113404836085761/prompts-for-january). This month I also prompted myself with the theme of light.
> 
> This is one fic in a series dedicated only to Monthly Rumbelling stories from all over the franchise. Eventually the purpose of this collection will all make sense, but for now, please enjoy the random storytelling.

“It’s two minutes since the last time you checked.” Weaver’s voice cut through the sounds of evening traffic and pedestrian chatter to make Rogers jump. 

Forgetting all about the watch on his wrist, Rogers spun around to meet his partner’s knowing grin and scowled in response. “Weaver. What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

“Helping you kill the time between now and nine o’clock,” the other detective answered. His head tipped toward the bright yellow truck that was parked down the street. It was just far enough away to prevent anyone standing beside it from recognizing them for who they were.

Rogers felt his eyebrows rise up with surprise. “How did you know I’d even be here.”

Dropping himself into a nearby bench, Weaver let his answer come out in a puff of wind. “You’ve only been talking about Tilly’s new job all day. What kind of detective would I be to not work out that you’d stop here on your way to pick her up?”

“All right, I'll grant you that much, but you weren't over at the truck when I got here," Rogers protested, realizing the moment the words left him that they easily labeled him as the stalker he was trying not to make himself out to be. He tried not to imagine what must have come to Weaver’s mind in that moment: his standing in one place, staring down the street like he was on a stakeout. " _I_ didn’t even know I was going to be in this exact spot until I came here. I could have ended up anywhere." 

Weaver lifted a hand to gesture at the distant vehicle, then pointed an accusatory finger at Rogers. “Best view from any direction. _You_ told me what time she gets off, _and_ that you were planning on getting her when she was finished.” He flashed a self satisfied grin and settled back, lounging on the bench as if he had all the time in the world. The harsh white streetlight above him caught in the thick chain he wore around his wrist, making it wink in the darkness. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist getting here early. Of course that brings up the puzzle, doesn’t it? Where do you wait that doesn’t make you seem like either a stalker or a spy?"

Damn this man was good. Maybe they'd had a rocky start to their partnership, but that was due mostly to Weaver’s reputation. Once someone truly got to know the personality behind the false exterior he’d created for himself, it was easy to see the kind heart and thoughtful nature of a truly decent human being. Rogers had never quite figured out why his partner needed to appear corrupt, angry, and deceitful all the time and at this point he'd given up trying to. The important thing in the end was knowing that there was a man behind the monster, the kind of man who took time out of his evening schedule to support someone feeling a little lost.

Rogers moved to the empty side of the bench and almost fell into it, letting the hard wooden slats rattle him. The impact broke off the weight of guilt and worry that he carried and he suddenly felt lighter, more at ease. “Everywhere else I tried to stand made me feel like I didn’t trust her,” Rogers muttered with a sigh. “The closest bench is right there at the truck and she'd feel pressured if I was hovering about. I didn't want that.”

“I rest my case,” Weaver chuckled. He lifted his arm, then dropped it to his leg, the slap of his palm against his jeans suddenly cutting away all other words that could have been shared between them.

There was something familiar about sitting together without speaking a word, but that same something also felt out of place and Rogers couldn’t put his finger on where the odd compilation of feelings was coming from. They’d had similar silences working together in the office, but that was work, when each of them was busy at their own tasks. This quiet seemed somehow unsatisfying and unsettling for both of them, an exact contrast to any type of quiet they would have shared before. Rogers felt the wrongness of it in the same way that a meal would feel incomplete without a beverage to wash it down with. The longer the absence of conversation pressed against him, the more certain he was that he should be saying something, discussing some concept that they’d always shared. He just didn’t know what that topic should be, even if it felt as if it were right at the front of his mind, pushing to escape him.

Since there seemed to be no way to break the oddity between them, Rogers sat and watched people walk past. Most were rushing to get home or trying to make their night shift on time, but there were a few couples out, and some families, casually strolling down the sidewalks. One man passed them, escorting a woman who was most certainly pregnant. They stopped at the crossing and his arm wrapped around her from behind, pulling her close enough that he could just brush the side of her belly while they waited for the light to change. 

As Rogers watched the couple he caught movement from the corner of his eye and glanced at man beside him on the bench, whose entire demeanor had changed. Weaver had also seen the couple and their presence was having an odd effect on him. His body was rigid with intensity and he now sat forward, elbows on his knees, eyes set firmly on the distance. Weaver was pale too, not just from the glare of the streetlight, but from a complete draining of his life essence. He suddenly seemed frail, weakened by what was before him. His gaze was intent and yet full of sadness, which set Rogers to wondering about the man’s past. 

“You ever have one?” He meant for the question to be jarring, to jolt the other man out of whatever thought he was lost in, but Weaver seemed oblivious to it, eyes drifting along as the pair crossed the street and moved out of sight. He only seemed to gain focus once the couple had vanished.

“Pardon?” The detective looked over, no longer lost in his own thoughts.

“Kids,” Rogers said, enunciating the word to exaggerate Weaver’s selective deafness. “You told me you had a wife. Did you ever have kids?”

Weaver scoffed and lifted a leg to rest his ankle on his knee, regaining the casual attitude of a man who was only here to waste time and didn’t have a care in the world. “Where’s that coming from, then?”

Refusing to play the man’s game, Rogers waited patiently for an answer. His partner was hiding something, he was _always_ hiding something and Rogers knew that if he spoke Weaver would only take his words and twist them into a subject change. There would never be an answer to the question he was looking for and he’d be out in the cold again, trying to work his way back into Weaver’s hidden kindness.

After what felt like an hour’s worth of waiting, Rogers was rewarded with a sigh of acquiescence. “I have two. Both boys. Different wives,” Weaver added the last bit sharply, as if he were afraid of admitting to a second relationship. His eyes grew sad again as he lifted his chin to indicate the direction the couple had gone. “Didn’t get a chance at that with either of them.”

A pang of guilt hit Rogers and he regretted asking the question, but for some reason continuing to press for answers felt as natural to him as believing that every odd thing he did here in Hyperion Heights was meant to reunite him with his lost wife. Some instinct, some twinge of memory inside of him simply wouldn’t let him think any other way. “What happened?”

Weaver shrugged. “I was a lot younger the first time. Just joined the force. Came back from my training and she’d had him. Never even knew she was pregnant before I left and when I came back she ran off with some idiot she claimed was better for her than I was. So I raised my son alone. He and I lost contact, eventually reunited. Second wife came along and…” He paused, face contorted in a now familiar expression of someone who is trying to find the right words to express himself properly. “Things happened to her that I couldn’t control. She had our boy far too early and I wasn’t there.”

“Must have been hard,” Rogers told him through he pang of sympathy that surged up at the idea of being denied a father’s role in his wife’s pregnancy. He couldn’t see the public image of Weaver as a family man, yet his head was suddenly full of images of the private life of his partner, reading bedtime stories and going on picnics, or playing games in a big, green yard.

“Yeah, well, you see, that’s a pattern with me.” The detective’s finger shook at Rogers, rattling the chain at his wrist. “Shit husband.”

It wasn’t the truth. Rogers knew absolutely nothing about this man’s love life, but he _knew_ , somehow, that this confession wasn’t the truth. 

“You told me you were trying to get back to your wife, is-”

“I already told you it’s a complicated story,” Weaver barked. “And it’s still one I’m not about to share with my work partner.”

Rogers had to give him that one. He held up his hands in a gesture of placation. “Fair enough. I just… I wondered if you got back together, would you…” He rolled his his hand through the air, trying to use the universal gesture for words not quite appropriate to speak, but Weaver seemed as blank to it as he had the original question. “Well, you know… try again?”

“Can’t.” The single word held far too much weight in it and Rogers regretted asking the minute it was spoken. “Damage was done the last time. She can’t have more kids, even if she were young enough that we could try again.”

There was far more to this story than Weaver was letting on and it wasn’t just instinct that revealed that truth to Rogers. Somewhere inside of himself he felt they’d had this conversation before, yet it wasn’t a true case of déjà vu. It was as if the sentences were all in the right order but the words were somehow scrambled into a code he couldn’t decipher.

“More to fatherhood than being around for the birth,” Rogers said quietly, hoping to provide some peace after the torments he’d delivered. “I’ve seen the way you are with Tilly. If that’s any indication of the way you raised your own children, I can’t imagine them being anything but happy.”

Weaver turned to him, stunned by the observation. The white light caught in his face and Rogers noticed that the man’s eyes moist with unshed tears. “You really think that?”

“Yeah.” The answer seemed obvious to Rogers. “I mean I’m surprised Tilly even ended up with me. Always thought she’d have hung out at your place.”

“No one wants to stay there,” Weaver huffed.

Rogers chuckled. “What? You’ve got a full on bachelor pad or something?”

“I’m not an easy man to love.” Somehow his partner snarled the words out through a whisper, squeezing the pain out of each syllable in a hiss.

“Well Tilly adores you,” Rogers insisted. “Basically thinks of you like a father she never had… In her own sort of way.”

Weaver shook his head. “She belongs with you.”

This was news to Rogers, who couldn’t help but laugh at it. “She’s a bit young for that, mate.”

“No, no, no!” Shocked at the way his statement was interpreted, Weaver shifted in his spot on the bench so he could send a panicked look over at Rogers. His hands rose up to deflect the misunderstanding, as if to push it away. “I mean she looks up to you. _You’re_ the father figure here, not the old, lonely bastard with just his career and a lost love to hang on to.”

Now it was Rogers who let out a huff of uncertainty. “Me? A father figure? Don’t think so,” he insisted. “There’s a lot that goes into that title and I’m less of it than even the man you’re trying to describe, who _isn’t_ you, by the way. Just so we’re clear on that.”

Weaver stood and looked down at him, expression blank. His body sagged a little too, as if he’d spent all of his energy continuing whatever charade he’d been trying to hold up and just didn’t have the strength to lift it any longer. “You don’t know me. Don’t pretend to.” He turned and strode away without even a glance behind him.

“Hey. I’m sorry, all right? I just… Weaver!” Rogers stood and fought the urge to chase after him. “Where the hell are you going?”

His partner spun on his heel and flashed him a grin that shone in the harsh white light of the street lamp. Trapped in the city’s spotlight, Weaver tapped his wrist dramatically. “Nine o’clock,” he said simply. “My job’s done.”

Rogers glanced down at his own wrist, pulling his sleeve back to reveal the time. Nine exactly, just as Weaver had said. He lifted his eyes to thank the man, but he’d simply disappeared, faded into the night as if he’d been one with the darkness all along.

“You’re not the man you claim to be,” Rogers whispered as he stood from the bench and headed to the dwindling crowd at Rollin’ Bayou. “And some day I’m going to prove it to you.”


End file.
